Sunday, April 7, 2013

Plot Device

As I gear up for some serious writing, I'm digging through various and sundry rejections and trunk stories. Not to rewrite anything necessarily, but to give thought to what I could have done better. What I would do differently now were I to pay these older tales from my younger days a visit. 

I came across one polite rejection letter from a gentleman who is every bit the title.

"Thanks for your submission. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on this one. The storyline is a tired one, in my opinion. This isn't badly told, but I have a lot of other stories that I like better. Perhaps another editor will feel differently about it."

As it turns out the story was picked up a few months later and went on to do very well. And that was before my Odyssey class! Oh, what I would do with it now.

Still, this rejection got me to thinking about tropes, memes and tired, old plot devices.

For every writer and filmmaker ever accused of using a tired, old plot device, I've just gotta ask: "What's so bad about that?"


This is one of my favorite Youtube video, ever.

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